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[OB] Treatment of the parshman


Lazarus52980

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My personal belief is that listeners have little control over the spren bond. Eshonai notes in one of her chapters that most listeners prefer to use a captured spren when taking on a new form rather than taking a random chance in a storm. That seems to imply that if a listener were caught in a storm they'd be at risk of taking on a new spren bond and form - even if the spren were a voidspren.

If the listeners do actually have little control over taking a new form then preventing them from taking any forms isn't as monstrous as it first appears. That doesn't excuse any treatment of them after the fact of course, but if all odium had to do to deplete the forces of honor and supplement his own forces was knock down the east wall of a storm shelter, it's easy to see something would have to be done about that.

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I think this whole thread on the morality is is a big misconception. It presumes we have to classify this as right our wrong. This is so 21st century. Who died and made u g-d? There is no overarching right or wrong, only are you parshendi or human. The only 'right' way forward is to relate to the past as it helps u move forward so the right way for the listeners reawakened from slaveform is to react with righteous indignation and only to play this card as far is it gets them benifits when dealing with humans. If they do this the parshendi are great leaders and morally "right" ... same goes for the human response if by responding we were wrong to enslave them there is a complete breakdown in ability of pple to deal with the event bec. There was no other feasible option, modern humans didn't have choice. If this logic which is at least vaguely correct and is preventing humanity's from parshendi from moving forward and creating confusion then accepting responds litt is useless and is not morally correct

 

in a nutshell:the only morally correct compass is to look forward and help everybody live. Better lives Here on. You cAn not lie steal and abuse pple ever and if that was the case it would never be morally correct but it's not. It's about which lenses to place on the past and since all lenses are true it's just a matter of picking the perspective which is most helpful going forward

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This reminds me a lot the debate on whether it was right to use nukes in the second world war. And most notably, the fact that while a lot of debate was made afterwards, no debate whatsoever was made before. It was a secret weapon whose very existance was known only to a relatively small number of people, and most of those people didn't even see a moral question: they were in a total war, they had a new weapon, they used it and called it a day. Only later they saw moral problems.

That's because when you are in that kind of war, you are kinda busy killing the enemy before the enemy kills you to consider moral implications.

So, I would guess that whoever did the deed - probably a herald - didn't actually give it much thought at the time. It was a move that would cripple the enemy's ability to wage war, and that was it. And after the war, the parhsmen were enslaved because now we have all those dumb people lying around, doing everything they're told, and so why not? they were the enemy, after all. In every war, the winner exacts a tribute from the defeated. They are called "war reparations", but the principle is the same: it can be considered a mild form of indirect enslavement, because the defeated population has to pay the winning population, and the winning population can use that money to make the defeated population work for them; you sum the two, you see that the winning population can make the defeated population work for them for free. And there is little mercy for someone that just a few months before was doing his best to kill you.

And so that's probably how it started, and after a few generations it became status quo and most people didn't even knew anymore the facts, so it kept going. And while the parshmen were certainly exploited, keep in mind that they themselves never objected to it, not even when encouraged. Shallan asked some parshmen if they wanted to be free, if they were unhappy with their treatment. She got no answers, and they seemed to be made uncomfortable from the questions. At this point, what was a human to do with parshmen? if left alone, they would be unable to survive. They needed to be fed, and since resources aren't that plentyful in a preindustrial society, making them work for it was perfectly justified. At this point you may want to leave them some free time, give them some pocket money... and they just spend their free time staring at a wall. their money, they have no idea what to do with it. So what then?

So I'm also in the "modern rosharans did nothing particularly wrong" field.

 

3 hours ago, Passion said:

I think this whole thread on the morality is is a big misconception. the only morally correct compass is to look forward and help everybody live Better lives Here on.

This certainly is the proper response to the situation, and I think it will be one of the oaths kaladin will have to find. Still, looking at the past and try to sift the right ffrom wrong  is a useful exercice, if nothing else for the potential to learn a lesson.

Anyway, you might want to revise your grammar and synthax. there are whole parts of your posts where I cannot make sense of what you're trying to say. I'd have downvoted for poor form, except that I'd also have upvoted it for the content and so I did neither.

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7 hours ago, Michael Portz said:

Well...there are quite some different species on Roshar, none of which is really "human" ... although they are not THAT different, as they can interbreed ... :rolleyes: ... hard to say how similar species have to be to call it racism ... quite a can of worms better left closed ...

EDT: bold

Are you trying to say humans and Parshendi can interbreed?

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5 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

Are you trying to say humans and Parshendi can interbreed?

Yes. 

Quote

HorseCannon

I didn't realize horneaters had parshmen blood, didn't even realize that was possible. How closely are humans and parshmen related, do they have a common ancestor? Or is one an artificially created version of the other?

Brandon Sanderson

There was intermixing long ago. Horneaters and Herdazians are both a result. (Signs of this are the stone carapace on Herdazian fingernails and the Horneater extra jaw pieces--in the back of the mouth--for breaking shells.)

Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

ccstat

Are there Aimian-Human hybrids as well? (Either type of Aimian) If so, are the Thaylen people one of these?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

 

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2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yes. 

 

Wow, thank you, mind blown.  I was one who was struggling with the "is it slavery if its a different species with mental capacity far below human levels" re. the parshman (i.e. it's not slavery to own and use a horse), but this puts the issue in a different context.  Given there are descendants, this means the human-parshendi offspring are not sterile (like e.g. mules) which shows a fairly high level of genetic compatibility.  Makes me reconsider the possibility of a human/parshendi romance...

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22 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yes. 

I'm actually having a hard time suspending disbelief on this on. The listeners and humans are very different and it seems a stretch that they would be able to interbreed, but perhaps the difference is more in the spiritual dna than in the physical. I guess listeners in mateform are similar to rosharan humans, so maybe it does make sense in a limited way. But it seems weird to me that none of the ability to change form shows up in herdazians or in the horneaters. Maybe that's where the aimians got it, unless they are an original species.

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13 minutes ago, soulcastJam said:

I'm actually having a hard time suspending disbelief on this on. The listeners and humans are very different and it seems a stretch that they would be able to interbreed, but perhaps the difference is more in the spiritual dna than in the physical. I guess listeners in mateform are similar to rosharan humans, so maybe it does make sense in a limited way. But it seems weird to me that none of the ability to change form shows up in herdazians or in the horneaters. Maybe that's where the aimians got it, unless they are an original species.

if this was a sci-fi setting, I would call sheanigangs on the interbreeding, but when investiture is involved, there's really no telling.

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Actually, I wonder how often offspring of the two species come up?  We know from that WoB that interspecies relations can produce offspring, and I find it nearly impossible to believe that someone somewhere didn't decide that their slave could be used for more...intimate purposes.  (This happened fairly often during the slavery period in the US and I can only assume it happened elsewhere).  It's possible that breeding with humans and parshmen could only happen when the parshman were in mate form, but if not, I wonder how many of the parshman walking around now have human DNA in them...

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9 hours ago, Justice said:

Briefly ignoring the debate on was it right/wrong to treat the Parshmen as slave labor, I am interested in the question posed here: Was their sense of superiority racism? Interesting question. It is certainly unclear. I might argue that if it was racism they would treat the Listeners differently than they had when they encountered them. They did not assume the Listeners were slaves, nor did they attempt to enslave them to use as labor based solely on appearance/apparent similarity.  They engaged them as a nation, recognizing their rights to the lands they occupied and negotiating a treaty to use their lands.

Back to the main debate, Eshonai's POV in the prologue to OB demonstrates that even the Listeners saw tremendous differences between themselves and the Parshmen. It comes to mind then, that through some magical or supernatural means, those Listeners who became Parshmen were physically and mentally altered in a way that made them unable to care for themselves. At this point there may be a moral obligation to care for them, but the form of that care (and the labor extracted as a cost of that care) are of concern. 

This reminds me of the difficulty in deciding when someone is no longer capable of consent, such as in the cases of medical powers of attorney or extreme disability. The legal status in the US is of Guardianship or Conservatorship. A Guardian or Conservator is granted the power and authority to make decisions on behalf of the incapacitated person, or ward. To declare that the Parshmen were in no way wronged by modern Rosharans requires the assumption that the Parshmen are so unable to care for themselves that they are incapacitated. This seems to be a good assumption. However, for them to have done no wrong, they must be acting in the ward's best interest and cause no harm. They certainly cannot be financially gaining from the labor of the ward.

Can it be said, in treating them as slaves, that the Rosharan's were acting as responsible and moral guardians of their wards? At best, they were neglectful and wrong. In truth, they were taking advantage of their wards to benefit themselves, and so were acting immorally.

 

 

I agree that slavery is hardly the most morally ideal option, but can you offer a feasible alternative? Thousands upon thousands of "people" who can't even care for themselves... everybody take a parshmen and feed them until they fall over dead? Even cattle are more self sufficient. Given that parshmen are not actually human (as in the same species), and they demonstrated no mental capacity for thousands of years, and given that the current generation of Rosharans were born and raised in a world where that was the case as far back as accurate recorded history goes, I just don't see how its less moral than keeping chulls. Human shaped chulls. Now that sounds really harsh and grotesque, but again: what is the feasible alternative? I certainly think individual Rosharan's are guilty of cruelty towards parshmen. That's inevitable. I don't yet see how the current Rosharan population as a whole is guilty in anyway that would justify their whole-scale slaughter.

What matters to me at this point is two things: will Brandon demonstrate they had more mental capacity then so far suggested? Will the Rosharans see the error in continuing to treat them as slaves when they start talking, writing treaties, sailing ships, or doing calculus? If the first, my entire argument falls apart and the Parshmen have been deeply wronged. If the latter... the Rosharans are guilty in the present, and therefore accountable...... but destroying them all??? ...ehhhhhhh

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11 hours ago, Asrael said:

I don't know, I see what you're getting at, but Dalinar is literally a changed person. And I don't think the return of his horrible memories will cause him to become who he once was. And besides that, is repentance not  thing? And I don't just mean in the purely religious sense it comes from; Dalinar is no longer the person he was, and while the people around him aren't obligated to see that and just let go of his crimes, I don't think he is under any obligation to just stop trying to save the world. Surely saving the world is some form of atonement. If everyone utterly refuses to help him thats something else entirely

 

This seems spot on in reference to Dalinar. Remember when Dalinar was first trying to get the highprinces to go on joint-plateau runs and the highprince (I think Aladar) questions the assurances that Aladar would not be taken advantage of? Dalinar says his honor was what he would reassure Aladar with and aladar says "Well, no one can doubt that..."
It seems that Dalinar's transformation took place far enough in the past, and was significant enough, that people have come to see him in a new light. I think it started at the death of Gavilar, from what we've read so far.

As to the topic at hand: 

You have to separate the pieces of this, and therefore the culpability. 
1st: Odium influences the Listeners and they become voidbringers.
2nd: Eventually the Humans (we presume) figure out a way to turn the voidbringers into parshmen/slaveforms 
3rd: Humanity puts them to use
4th: Humanity uses them as slaves for millenia
4th: they gain their forms back...What does humanity do next?

In the 1st case, Odium is the most clearly at fault, though maybe there were listeners like Venli who welcomed his influence. The Listeners as a race, so far, don't sound like this is their character overall.
In the 2nd case, the humans did what they did in self defence. The individual who caused the transformation was the individual who caused the war, Odium, and those listeners who gleefully accepted his influence. This was a moral act brought on by the actions of the aggressor (I'm super into Just war as a thing. Defending yourself and your people justifies MOST (not all) actions taken against them, so long as you truly are the defender, not the aggressor)
In the 3rd case, this seems to have been the only way to keep the parshmen alive.
In the 4th case, the humans enslaved the Parshendi for thousands of years. My question, though, is this really slavery? Modern humans did not know that Parshmen could think. They were not much smarter than a chull, from what we've read. Maybe I should say they did not display intelligence much more than a chull. They couldn't demonstrate that they could think. This was so pervasive that people stopped thinking of them as intelligent creatures. They were certainly treated better than human slaves, really they were treated like cattle.

Finally we're brought to the 5th case, We don't know what happens next. Can I understand why they were angry? Yes, absolutely! They were intelligent but the damage done to them thousands of years ago kept them from displaying this. But, if we were to exclude Odium's influence (more on this in a moment) what happens next shows how moral humanity and the listeners as peoples are. Kaladin's efforts are laudable, but how will the rest of humanity act? Will they forcibly retake their slaves, or will they, like Gavilar and the Alethi when they first encountered the parshendi, try to negotiate with them as a people group. War is NOT inevitable, assuming good-will prevails on both sides. 
When you bring Odium's influence back in, of course many of the listeners will bond with voidspren, and many more will probably join the voidbringers in warform. But again, that's Odium's fault, not the listeners.

Anyways, that's my way more than 2 cents worth.

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@Asrael, I agree that total destruction of the Humans on Roshar is not the direction to go. It is not warranted by their previous actions. Odium might want this as the outcome, but this seems significantly less than his cosmere-level goals.

It seems that you are trying to answer Sah's question from Chapter 20:

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“Sah, it doesn’t have to come to war. You don’t have to fight the humans.”

“Perhaps. But let me ask you this.” He set the axe across his lap. “Considering what they did to me, why wouldn’t I?”

You suggest they forgive and move on? That would be best for all in the long run, but where will they live? How do they protect themselves? The vengeance pact makes the Listeners an enemy. The prior condition of ownership makes the "healed" Parshmen escaped slaves. They will be hunted and fought wherever they are found. Even if we agree that the immoral actions of the Rosharans do not justify the Listeners killing all humans, their previous experience and the current political, social and economic position they are in certainly warrants they learn to defend themselves from re-enslavement and create their own nation. 

Finally, the true danger is that even the smallest sense of injustice on the part of the transformed Parshmen would most likely be fanned into flames by Odium's intent:

Quote

He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context.

Divine hatred directed at those who held them in millennia of enslavement. They are fertile soil for the seeds of Odium's intent. 

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I think a fact missing here is that the Parshmen were always people. Just because they were of low intelligence does not mean they should have been treated like livestock, with families broken up for breeding purposes, ect. We have definitive proof that the way the Parshmen were treated was severely emotionally scarring, and they had no way to fight back as they were mentally and spiritually crippled. Kaladin got yelled at this very sequence of chapters for assuming that the only reason the Parshmen were deserving of basic human rights is they had back their ability to communicate and act like "normal" human beings. 

And let's not act like their enslavement was some sort of benevolent attempt to keep them from dying; for the vast majority of Alethi culture, it was for economic profit, pure and simple. It's understandable that the Alethi didn't know how the Parshmen were feeling, but that does not erase the fact that the enslavement of the Parshmen was wrong, as the enslavement of an entire race of people will always be wrong. I feel like saying slavery is wrong should not be a controversial statement.

Edited by kiapet
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7 minutes ago, kiapet said:

I think a fact missing here is that the Parshmen were always people. Just because they were of low intelligence does not mean they should have been treated like livestock, with families broken up for breeding purposes, ect. We have definitive proof that the way the Parshmen were treated was severely emotionally scarring, and they had no way to fight back as they were mentally and spiritually crippled. Kaladin got yelled at this very sequence of chapters for assuming that the only reason the Parshmen were deserving of basic human rights is they had back their ability to communicate and act like "normal" human beings. 

And let's not act like their enslavement was some sort of benevolent attempt to keep them from dying; for the vast majority of Alethi culture, it was for economic profit, pure and simple. It's understandable that the Alethi didn't know how the Parshmen were feeling, but that does not erase the fact that the enslavement of the Parshmen was wrong, as the enslavement of an entire race of people will always be wrong. I feel like saying slavery is wrong should not be a controversial statement.

I don't know if there could have been a "good" way for the humans to treat the Parshmen.  The Parshmen were people, but they lacked not only the ability to make complex decisions on their own, they also lacked any real ability to communicate what feelings and desires they had.  In the WoK they go over how they are basically mute. From what we know, it seems the modern humans treat Parshmen as cattle, but valuable cattle. 

It is hard to come up with a good analogy so I will slaughter it anyway.  The Parshmen are like someone who has been drugged against their will, normally if you ran into someone who is on a bad trip, or just drank way too much, being a good person involves making sure they are ok ,keeping them safe, and getting them medical treatment until they recover.  The big problem with the Parshmen is that they never recovered. If the people who did this could have helped them recover and they didn't that is evil.  However, modern people don't even realize or have any way to know that the Parshmen have been "drugged".  The moral imperative for protecting a drugged person comes from understanding that someone has interfered with their ability to make decisions (usually to take advantage of that state.)  Modern people on Roshar have no way to know that the Parshmen are not themselves and that someone has done this to them, therefore they lack the information they needed to make a good decision.*

*Caveat: It is possible that the humans of Roshar have seen plenty of evidence that the Parshmen have feelings and they all just ignored it and it was never brought up in a way the reader knows about.  If the humans have just been ignoring the signs, then it strays more into the evil acts camp because they ignored the signs of what they were doing.

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6 minutes ago, kiapet said:

 I feel like saying slavery is wrong should not be a controversial statement.

How about cattle? Animals are enslaved all the time, and most people are ok with it. Even if you belong to that small minority that would like to make do without any kind of animal slavery - which is a very small minority anyway, as most people don't see why human rights should go to animals - you'd have to admit that we may, just maybe, be able to make do without domesticated animals in our time only because of our technology. It is possible to eschew meat, but only with modern alimentation knowledge; people from the past would have no way of knowing exactly what kind of fruits and cereals they'd need to eat to get enough proteins. Even today, it is quite controversial if you can maintain a vegan diet without adverse effects.

Food aside, before modern synthetics, leather and wool were just irreplaceable, and the labor force provided by horses and donkeys could not be replicated easily. Back in cavemen's time, when men's ancestors learned to hunt big game, it marked a jump in intelligence because they suddenly had more proteins.

 

So, enslaving animals is necessary to survival of a medieval society. The question in whether enslaving the parshmen was acceptable or not, therefore, revolves around two points: 1) were parshmen no better than animals with a humanoid form? 2) had the other humans a chance to learn that?

Now, kaladin's conversation make is seem that parshmen retained a glimmer of sentience; enough to figure out that they should not be enslaved. So no, it was wrong to enslave them. But as for question 2), which is a vital one, the answer is no. No, regular society had no way of understanding that parshmen were smarter, and therefore worthy of more rights, than pack animals. We've seen both kaladin and shallan try to interact with parshmen, and they get no smarter conversation than what I'd expect from my cats, if they could talk. except for rlain at the end, when he left bridge four, but keep in mind that rlain was dullform, not slaveform; he had troubles putting two words together, and he still was behaving more smartly than regular parshmen.

So, considering all that, I come to the conclusion that enslaving the parshmen was wrong, but the humans cannot be considered guilty as they had no way of knowing the key informations that made the enslaving wrong in the first place.

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24 minutes ago, kiapet said:

I think a fact missing here is that the Parshmen were always people. Just because they were of low intelligence does not mean they should have been treated like livestock, with families broken up for breeding purposes, ect. We have definitive proof that the way the Parshmen were treated was severely emotionally scarring, and they had no way to fight back as they were mentally and spiritually crippled. Kaladin got yelled at this very sequence of chapters for assuming that the only reason the Parshmen were deserving of basic human rights is they had back their ability to communicate and act like "normal" human beings. 

And let's not act like their enslavement was some sort of benevolent attempt to keep them from dying; for the vast majority of Alethi culture, it was for economic profit, pure and simple. It's understandable that the Alethi didn't know how the Parshmen were feeling, but that does not erase the fact that the enslavement of the Parshmen was wrong, as the enslavement of an entire race of people will always be wrong. I feel like saying slavery is wrong should not be a controversial statement.

But how do you decide what constitutes a "people" species versus an "animal" species?  Especially since for thousands of years, the only interactions Rosharan humans had with the species was parshman, who it has been said could not function without human direction.  This is part of why I was so shocked that humans and parshman/parshendi could interbreed, and since they could produce reproductively viable offspring, that means the genetics are very, very close.  Assuming this was known to Rosharan's (given this fact, I can't imagine there wasn't raping of parshman women and illegitimate children produced that way, just like happened in the pre-emancipation South), then I agree it becomes a pretty black and white argument.  (For me at least.)  Where does one draw the line?  Take primates in our world - there are definitely groups who think primates should be treated differently than other animals, but I think your average person thinks of them as animals, like a horse or a cow is an animal.  We do not have any domesticated primates, but let's assume chimpanzees were domesticated.  Would it be wrong for humans to own chimpanzees and use them the way we use horses and cows?

Edited to add: @king of nowhere made much of the same point as above while I was typing!

Edited by Dreamstorm
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36 minutes ago, kiapet said:

I think a fact missing here is that the Parshmen were always people. Just because they were of low intelligence does not mean they should have been treated like livestock, with families broken up for breeding purposes, ect. We have definitive proof that the way the Parshmen were treated was severely emotionally scarring, and they had no way to fight back as they were mentally and spiritually crippled. Kaladin got yelled at this very sequence of chapters for assuming that the only reason the Parshmen were deserving of basic human rights is they had back their ability to communicate and act like "normal" human beings. 

And let's not act like their enslavement was some sort of benevolent attempt to keep them from dying; for the vast majority of Alethi culture, it was for economic profit, pure and simple. It's understandable that the Alethi didn't know how the Parshmen were feeling, but that does not erase the fact that the enslavement of the Parshmen was wrong, as the enslavement of an entire race of people will always be wrong. I feel like saying slavery is wrong should not be a controversial statement.

You're looking at this from the outside, knowing that the parshmen are people capable of thought and emotional intelligence. The Alethi literally could not know that the parshmen were more than vaguely human shaped beasts of burden until they met the parshendi. Even then, there was a lot of doubt about whether or not the parshmen and parshendi were related. They had no idea that they could form emotional bonds such as husband and wife. WE have definitive proof that the way the parshmen were treated was scarring, but only now, after Kaladin has interacted with them. Prior to that we didn't know if they were, at any level, conscious or even capable of actual consciousness during their captivity. 

We're not saying that the humans were right to do as they did, we're saying they couldn't have know they were wrong. They didn't have the requisite facts. I mean, if we, as humans on Earth, found out tomorrow Cows are completely sentient beings of equal intelligence as us, we would be guilty ONLY IF we continued treating them as we do now. Right now we know they are herd beasts that taste good. We have a certain moral obligation to prevent cruelty, but it is entirely appropriate to use them as workers and to eat them. That would change in an instant if we discovered they were intelligent. 

What's more, we would look back on our previous actions with horror. BUT we couldn't have known differently at the time. The Humans of the first 2 books simply could not have known the Parshmen were not animals with a vaguely human shape.

Edit: I agree with others who have said something to the effect: "If the humans had ANY INKLING that the parshmen were intelligent, sentient beings, rather than bipedal animals and treated them as slaves, they were entirely wrong"
I also wouldn't be surprised by that, since the humans keep ACTUAL slaves, but I don't think it's the case with reference to the Parshmen.

Edited by bo.montier
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23 hours ago, Lazarus52980 said:

Am I seeing this wrong? 

No I dont think your seeing this wrong at all,  in fact I think you are right on the money.  Yes they were slaves but were not beaten all the time like their human counterparts.

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24 minutes ago, bo.montier said:

The Humans of the first 2 books simply could not have known the Parshmen were not animals with a vaguely human shape.

EXCEPT if they knew they could mate with them and produce offspring.  That changes the whole calculus.  (Whether they knew this or not remains to be seen.)

You have an excellent point that Alethi at least had human slaves, so they likely didn't care either way about the morality of owning parshman.

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14 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

EXCEPT if they knew they could mate with them and produce offspring.  That changes the whole calculus.  (Whether they knew this or not remains to be seen.)

You have an excellent point that Alethi at least had human slaves, so they likely didn't care either way about the morality of owning parshman.

Is that something so far back that the Humans don't even know? I dont' remember that being mentioned In-World, only as a WoB or something. 

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10 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

EXCEPT if they knew they could mate with them and produce offspring.  That changes the whole calculus.  (Whether they knew this or not remains to be seen.)

 

but did they produce offspring with humans? If there were half-parshendi kids around, I think it would have been known. I think men and parshendi hadn't produced an offspring in millennia. Possibly it required mateform, or maybe there's another reason, I just think it would be mentioned somewhere if there were offspring, as both shallan and jasnah investigated them to a good extent.

Quote

You have an excellent point that Alethi at least had human slaves, so they likely didn't care either way about the morality of owning parshman.

human slavery, on the other hand, is quite different: alethi slaves must be paid a minimum wage, they have slave debts that they can try to pay, and they are free if they do. Now, there were evil people who abused the system on account of them having the slaves' documents for "safekeeping" and a slave accusing a master of cheating would never be believed in a tribunal, not without proof that the slave would have no way of obtaining. But from a phylosophical point of view, human slavery was entirely different from parshmen slavery. Human slaves were still considered humans under the law, while parshmen were cattle.

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4 minutes ago, bo.montier said:

Is that something so far back that the Humans don't even know? I dont' remember that being mentioned In-World, only as a WoB or something. 

 

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

but did they produce offspring with humans? If there were half-parshendi kids around, I think it would have been known. I think men and parshendi hadn't produced an offspring in millennia. Possibly it required mateform, or maybe there's another reason, I just think it would be mentioned somewhere if there were offspring, as both shallan and jasnah investigated them to a good extent.

No clue if producing offspring is still biologically possible or if it happens in the modern day, and I know of nothing in-world which addresses the point (one way of the other - so I don't believe it's ruled out) or outside of the WoB which was pointed out to me earlier by @Calderis.  This fact, that humans and parshendi could produce viable offspring such that they had descendants, radically changed my perception of the interactions between the two species (can we even call them species...?, the WoB uses the word "humanoids"), but perhaps the shock of learning this today is making me put too much weight on the fact.

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22 minutes ago, Dreamstorm said:

 

No clue if producing offspring is still biologically possible or if it happens in the modern day, and I know of nothing in-world which addresses the point (one way of the other - so I don't believe it's ruled out) or outside of the WoB which was pointed out to me earlier by @Calderis.  This fact, that humans and parshendi could produce viable offspring such that they had descendants, radically changed my perception of the interactions between the two species (can we even call them species...?, the WoB uses the word "humanoids"), but perhaps the shock of learning this today is making me put too much weight on the fact.

Different species can definitely reproduce irl, like donkeys and horses. Most of the time the hybrid is sterile, again like mules, which are the offspring of donkeys and horses. 

I think it's pretty clear the listeners are a different species, but the more important difference is probably seen in their spirit web. They bond with Spren in a way humans cannot. I wonder what a first generation human/parshendi child would have access to investiture wise. 

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Well, it might not be that clear. Species is usually defined as the largest group in which the individuals that make up the group can produce fertile offspring. By that definition listeners and humans would be of the same species. It's not that wild a proposition really given that we earthbound humans are the result of neanderthal and homo-sapiens coupling.

I would assume in world that Adonalsium either created both races to be of the same species, or he created one race on many worlds and the unique ecology of Roshar led to some pretty distinct divergence from the listeners in the passage of time. Personally I lean toward the second scenario in that. Humans are widely disseminated throughout the cosmere and we have seen the creation of new humans previously so it's not a stretch to have had them created identically in different locations and then take divergent evolutionary paths while retaining the ability to interbreed. The rest of Roshars native wildlife has quite clearly adapted to the unique nature of Roshar in an evolutionary manner.

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Okay, I think we're arguing at least three different things here.

First, was keeping the Parshmen enslaved wrong? I argued that this is an unambiguous yes, as keeping a sentient race in slavery is pretty much always wrong and we have proof the Parshmen suffered from how they were treated.

Second, are the modern humans "guilty" for enslaving a group of people they had no way of knowing were more than cattle? This kind of depends on your definition of guilty- if it's determined by intention, then the answer is no because they didn't know, but if it's determined by the results of one's actions then they were still complicit in causing great suffering to an entire group of people. I would argue that they weren't at fault, necessarily, but they are as a people responsible for the effects of their society, and for making up for whatever wrongs they discover have been committed. Once the humans realized the Parshmen are people, the humans would be morally obligated to give the Parshmen whatever reparations they could. I doubt this is how the humans will react.

Finally, which I believe was the original question posed, was it wrong for the humans to enslave the Parshmen in the first place, or was it the "best" or least evil option? I think we need more information to tell for sure, but I highly doubt that either genocide or slavery were the only two options available, especially as we have proof from the Parshendi that the Parsh-people were likely mostly Voidbringers against their will and were capable of living as a normal society. It seems more likely that the humans enslaved the Parsh-people as victors of war generally do, and mentally imprisoned them as well, which is just plain wrong.

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